This is why the term 'Islamo-Fascist' is such a joke on the ignoramuses who repeat it. zg

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It's the Corporate State, Stupid

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.

David G. Mills

11/10/04 "ICH" -- The early twentieth century Italians, who invented the word fascism, also had a more descriptive term for the concept -- estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Unfortunately for Americans, we have come to equate fascism with its symptoms, not with its structure. The structure of fascism is corporatism, or the corporate state. The structure of fascism is the union, marriage, merger or fusion of corporate economic power with governmental power. Failing to understand fascism, as the consolidation of corporate economic and governmental power in the hands of a few, is to completely misunderstand what fascism is. It is the consolidation of this power that produces the demagogues and regimes we [confuse] as fascist ones.

I recently read that Brigitte Bardot, now in her 70s, has been arrested as a hate criminal for complaining that Muslims in France slaughter sheep without first stunning them. The famous actress is known for her sympathy with animals, but the French government preferred to interpret her remarks as hatred for Muslims. Prosecutor Anne de Fontette promised to throw the book at Bardot.[Brigitte Bardot in race hate row, Daily Telegraph, (London) April 18, 2008]

There are many incongruities here. The French are persecuting one of their own for taking exception to the practices of an alien culture. But then, perhaps this is just being broad-minded. What really jumps out is: if Bardot’s animal rights position makes her a hate criminal, what does French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s foreign policy position make him?

According to Information Clearing House’s running tally as of July 12, 1,236,604 Iraqis have been slaughtered as a result of the Sarkozy-supported US invasion and occupation of Iraq. If Bardot is a hate criminal under French law for complaining about how Muslims prepare their mutton, why isn’t President Sarkozy a hate criminal for supporting an American policy that has resulted in the deaths of 1,236,604 Muslims and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis?

Such incongruities are everywhere. It is as if people are no longer capable of thought.

Last week the US Congress passed an ex post facto law that legalized the illegal behavior of telecommunication companies that enabled the Bush Regime to violate US law and to spy on Americans without warrants. Retroactive laws are unconstitutional. But, alas, the US Constitution does not make campaign contributions, and telecommunication companies do.

The Bush Regime claimed that its illegal behavior, which requires an unconstitutional retroactive law to protect telecommunication companies and President Bush from being held accountable, is necessary to protect us. But as our Founding Fathers and every intelligent patriotic person since has patiently explained to the American public, it is the Constitution that protects us. No safety can be found by fleeing the Constitution.

Without the Constitution we have no protection. We simply stand naked before unbridled government power.

America may have some things we need to get better, but we're not in a fascist state and it's still a good country to live/work/survive/thrive in. I think there are other good countries in the world too, but this one is good as well. I've lived all over this country in my life, and there's good people all over. North, South, Midwest, West, everywhere there are good people.

It will be very hard for fascism to come to America because of the inherent rebelliousness of the population + guns. I live in Arizona. There are a lot of guns here. If some fascist group decided to try and take over and start taking away rights and changing things there would be a firefight on every street, every single one. I know the state of Texas would be the same way. As would more than a few other states I can think of.

If some fascist group decided to try and take over and start taking away rights and changing things there would be a firefight on every street, every single one.

You are really out of it. What do you think 9/11 and the Patriot Act were?
Read the article so you at least know what fasicsm is - the fusion of corporate and government interest/control.
You've been had. zg

Is that a truism, or just a cynical remark. Sometimes the majority is wrong, and that may be why we have an electoral college, although it has never come into play where the electors did not vote for whom the voters voted. QUOTE]

Where were you about 4 years ago? Miss the whole Gore/Bush thing?

If not officially fascist yet, we are certainly drifting that direction (right), and at this point seem a little Imperialist to me.

You missed my drift. I believe the electoral college was originally set up so that voters voted for an elector who in turn cast their vote for one of the candidates, but not necessarily the candidate the voters told them to vote for. But in practice, the electors have always to the best of my knowledge voted the way the voters directed them, not withstanding confusion in the counting of the votes and intervention of the courts. Unless otherwise pledged I believe the electors have always voted in whatever way the votes finally arrive to them, but I believe it is permissible for them to vote the other way. For example, 4 years ago I believe they could have voted for Gore, unless they were already bound by some intervening pledge to vote only as the voters (or the interpretation thereof by the courts) directed them to vote. I remember my history professor making a big deal out of how the founding fathers did not trust the voters enough to let their vote automatically select the President and that was why they came up with the electoral college idea. If it was just the distance between voting sites in those days they could have simply had couriers deliver the vote counts with no need for electors. Then the votes would be tallied for each state and finally combined to see which candidate won the most states.

It's true that Gore won the popular vote in 2000, if that is what you are saying, but the electors still voted for the districts they represented as the voters in those districts directed. We vote for the President by states, not by popular vote. Still, the electors have the power, or at least they once had the power, to upse the applecart by voting against the voters wishes.

So by your definition the country has always been fascist from day one. But I don't see it that way. I think we are far from the dictatorial powers of a Hitler or Stalin. Yes, we must always be on our guard, but no, we are not there yet, and in my opinion, we are far from there. The concept of freedom is so imbred in the American people that you would see a real uprising if we were really fascist or even nearly a fascist country. Only the fringes and the Hate-Bush collective believe that Bush is forging a fascist regime. Don't forget, this President, with all the criticism and downright hatred cast his way, was still elected for two straight terms, and if you want to make a big deal out of the closeness of the elections, you must still concede that approximately half the country voted for him in both elections, and in 2004, Bush won by 3 million in terms of popular vote. CLearly half the country did not feel as you when they reelected Bush in 04.

Last edited by aslan; August 7th, 2008 at 10:48 PM.

Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 -8/23/10
“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church,
but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

You missed my drift. I believe the electoral college was originally set up so that voters voted for an elector who in turn cast their vote for one of the candidates, but not necessarily the candidate the voters told them to vote for. But in practice, the electors have always to the best of my knowledge voted the way the voters directed them, not withstanding confusion in the counting of the votes and intervention of the courts. Unless otherwise pledged I believe the electors have always voted in whatever way the votes finally arrive to them, but I believe it is permissible for them to vote the other way. For example, 4 years ago I believe they could have voted for Gore, unless they were already bound by some intervening pledge to vote only as the voters (or the interpretation thereof by the courts) directed them to vote. I remember my history professor making a big deal out of how the founding fathers did not trust the voters enough to let their vote automatically select the President and that was why they came up with the electoral college idea. If it was just the distance between voting sites in those days they could have simply had couriers deliver the vote counts with no need for electors. Then the votes would be tallied for each state and finally combined to see which candidate won the most states.

It's true that Gore won the popular vote in 2000, if that is what you are saying, but the electors still voted for the districts they represented as the voters in those districts directed. We vote for the President by states, not by popular vote. Still, the electors have the power, or at least they once had the power, to upse the applecart by voting against the voters wishes.

So by your definition the country has always been fascist from day one. But I don't see it that way. I think we are far from the dictatorial powers of a Hitler or Stalin. Yes, we must always be on our guard, but no, we are not there yet, and in my opinion, we are far from there. The concept of freedom is so imbred in the American people that you would see a real uprising if we were really fascist or even nearly a fascist country. Only the fringes and the Hate-Bush collective believe that Bush is forging a fascist regime. Don't forget, this President, with all the criticism and downright hatred cast his way, was still elected for two straight terms, and if you want to make a big deal out of the closeness of the elections, you must still concede that approximately half the country voted for him in both elections, and in 2004, Bush won by 3 million in terms of popular vote. CLearly half the country did not feel as you when they reelected Bush in 04.

found this in wikpedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_...ctoral_CollegeA faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than whom they have pledged to elect, or who refuses to vote for any candidate. There are laws to punish faithless electors in 24 states. In 1952, the constitutionality of state pledge laws was brought before the Supreme Court in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214 (1952). The Court ruled in favor of state laws requiring electors to pledge to vote for the winning candidate, as well as remove electors who refuse to pledge. As stated in the ruling, electors are acting as a functionary of the state, not the federal government. Therefore, states have the right to govern electors. The constitutionality of state laws punishing electors for actually casting a faithless vote, rather than refusing to pledge, has never been decided by the Supreme Court. While many states may only punish a faithless elector after-the-fact, some such as Michigan have the power to cancel his or her vote.[22]

As electoral slates are typically chosen by the political party or the party's presidential nominee, electors usually have high loyalty to the party and its candidate: a faithless elector runs a greater risk of party censure than criminal charges.

While not a "faithless elector" as such, there have been two instances in which a candidate died between the selection of the electors in November and the Electoral College vote in December. In the election of 1872, Democratic candidate Horace Greeley passed away before the meeting of the Electoral College; the electors who were to have voted for Greeley, finding themselves in a state of disarray, split their votes across several candidates, including three votes cast for the deceased Greeley. However, President Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican incumbent, had already won an absolute majority of electors. Because it was the death of a losing candidate, there was no pressure to agree on a replacement candidate. Similarly, in the election of 1912, after the Republicans had nominated incumbent President William Howard Taft and Vice President James S. Sherman, Sherman died shortly before the election, too late to change the names on the ballot, thus causing Sherman to be listed posthumously. That ticket finished third behind the Democrats (Woodrow Wilson) and the Progressives (Theodore Roosevelt), and the eight electoral votes that Sherman would have received were cast instead for Nicholas M. Butler. Electors pledged to a dead candidate are free to vote for whomever they wish just as electors pledged to a live candidate are.

Faithless electors have not changed the outcome of a presidential election in any election to date.

The closest we have to fascists are the environmentalists, looking to micromanage our lives using their superstitions, with an end result of the West reverting to Third World standards. They have already succeeded in imposing dietary requirements on adults in major cities. They're coming after our cars now, so we have to be dependent on trains that may or may not run on time.

By God and the Second Amendment, they won't get my meat or my truck without a fight!

The green machine wants to chew us up and spit us out. You are so right, if there ever was a fascist threat, it's from the new age religion of radical environmentalism. Save the planet; screw the people on it. We are the religious left--we know what is best for you! Sound familiar? Lol

Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 -8/23/10
“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church,
but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

The green machine wants to chew us up and spit us out. You are so right, if there ever was a fascist threat, it's from the new age religion of radical environmentalism. Save the planet; screw the people on it. We are the religious left--we know what is best for you! Sound familiar? Lol

that was one of the things a lot of the ant-vietnam protest movement went into after it phased out. envirenmental issues.

Sorry zen, I just don't quite agree. I know about the Patriot Act, but what freedoms were you denied? What changed about your daily life, what freedoms were infringed upon after the Patriot Act that you are willing to fight for?

If people's lives were being drastically changed they would go up in arms.

I happen to work in telecommunications, in a wireless telecom switch. The very type of place that the gov't is supposed to be doing all of their illegal warrantless-wiretapping. I actually install and hook up the gov't equipment, I literally bolt down the routers and run the cabling and turn them on, and I do the monitoring, upgrades, etc to that equipment. If you honestly believe that the gov't is out there listening in on everyone's cell phone conversations then let me be the first to "PoP" that little bubble and send you spiraling back to reality.

They don't have the money, they don't have the resources, they don't have the manpower, they don't have the time, and they don't have the big picture put together...aka they wouldn't even know who to snoop on. You should see how long it takes them to get through the red tape just to get a cable ordered or get some breaker panels shipped. You would laugh your conspiracy-loving head off.

I would ask that one read the entire speech written here and then consider your vote. Its 30 years old, and still very relevent to any discussion about extremes in guvmint behavior.

RollerBall, anyone?

A good speech. I am not as pessimistic about the spiritual condition of the West. In the case of America, I think what he sees as moral bankruptcy is more a reflection of the limits of our civil system, of any civil system for that matter, and not of the people of our country themselves. Does the system need to be changed to reflect the values of its citizens? And if so, which citizens? Lol I try to change the system all the time. I guess that's part of the beauty of the system. As a civil system it can only go so far and it cannot be a respecter of one group over another, although it can and should favor one set of moral values over another. That is, the system should contantly strive to stand for what is just and right for its citizens. For example, the law says that a person's personal real property can be seized by the government for purposes of the general welfare, which has been interpreted in some cases to include its development by a private contractor into a housing development. The law also says that abortion is a personal and legal choice. And the law says that polygamy is a crime. So here we have three different rulings of a free society that any three citizens might well disagree on among themselves, and each may believe they have the higher moral ground. Those who disagree with any or all of these laws have ways within the system to work for a change in the law.

I've heard it said a lot by right wingers that this is a Christian country. That always seems to stick in my craw, because while we may have started out as a country of mainly Christians, the principles upon which the country is founded seem to allow---no, require---no discrimination as to religious belief or lack of belief. I can envision a country in which Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Deist, Atheist, etc. all live side by side in harmony. I believe that a conglomeration of isms can still achieve a just and fair society, one in which moral and spiritual substance emanates from the people themselves and not the rules of society, which only provides a framework from which all men of good will can coexist in harmony. I guess what I am saying is that there may have to be, and already is, a difference between civil moral limits and individual morals. What is the limit to which a society can allow its citizens to go in living according to their various beliefs? In some instances, the civil moral limit may agree with our personal moral beliefs, but in other cases, the civil limit may go well beyond what we consider morally responsible. For example, the law allows abortion, while a significant portion of society consider it one of the most reprehensible evils. Still, can an entire country be called spiritually bankrupt because some of its citizens deviate from the moral imperative of others? I always look to the moral issue of slavery. Through decades of education and debate the citizenry eventually came to a consensus that slavery was immoral. I believe the same can and will happen with other disparities between what is legally right and what is morally right. At least in our society we have the arena provided to us in which we can each fight the good fight. That's a whole lot more than you can say for many other societies.

Last edited by aslan; August 8th, 2008 at 02:19 AM.

Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 -8/23/10
“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church,
but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

Sorry zen, I just don't quite agree. I know about the Patriot Act, but what freedoms were you denied? What changed about your daily life, what freedoms were infringed upon after the Patriot Act that you are willing to fight for?

If people's lives were being drastically changed they would go up in arms.

Exactly MY point. YOU don't know or recognize what has happened. Its the old COOKED FROG system: If you drop a frog into hot water he'll immediately jump out. But if you put the frog in cold water and place the pan over the fire, the water will gradually heat until its suddenly too late for him to kick out and then the frog is cooked. THE FROG IS COOKED!

Are you unaware that the government new laws to restrict speech and other essential freedoms? That internment camps have been and are being built to incarcerate civilian dissidents? That journalists could soon find themselves labled 'Enemy Propagandists'? That Habeous Corpus is quickly becoming a thing of the past? zg

That internment camps have been and are being built to incarcerate civilian dissidents? That journalists could soon find themselves labled 'Enemy Propagandists'? That Habeous Corpus is quickly becoming a thing of the past? zg

If the frog is cooked, there's nothing you or anyone can do about it, so let's stop the chatter and kiss our asses goodbye.

I don't believe any of these things you speak of. No one will be incarcerated simply for being of a different opinion, ie, a dissident. This is not the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Iran, or Cuba, to name a few.

Some journalist may be enemy propagandists. Many are political party propagandists. Journalism needs to take a really hard look at itself. Journalism needs to raise the bar. It should strive to be unbiased in its reporting. As it stands, there is hardly any journalism in the United States that does not lean one way or the other. Journalism has lost its objectivity and many if not most of their political reporting should be called propaganda.

Habeas Corpus is anything but quickly becoming a thing of the past. It was just upheld by the Supreme Court in the case of Gitmo, where it could be argued that the US was justified in denying the principle, so I say that it is not only alive and well, but that it is stronger than ever.

Aslan 11/1/90 - 6/15/10 Stormy 1/22/95 -8/23/10
“There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church,
but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

As with aslan, I simply do not believe these things. Interment camps are being built? When, where, and by whom? They're not being built near me, if they were I can tell you they would have a hard time taking people to them. In Arizona it's legal to have a gun in your car door, you don't even need a concealed weapons permit for that, that's just with a regular gun permit. AKA they won't go silently.

I don't believe the things you're positing based on personal experiences. Like I said, I deal with government stuff everyday, the exact things that people claim the gov't is using against them like warrantless wiretapping. If you could see how little they do, how incompetent they are at it, and how badly it's done when they do get around to it you would not say such things.

The can't solve the immigrant problem here in Arizona, they can't solve the air quality problems, school problems, violence problems, but somehow they're secretly organizing and they're about to turn this place out and make this country a fascist new world empire? Nope.